Even with her head hurting and her heart pounding, Anya couldn't imagine herself staying in her barrack any longer. The room was tied to so many negative emotions and her rough day didn't help that one bit. Was this how things were going to be from here on out?

She gathered herself up, rubbing her face against her jumpsuit sleeve and starting out the door. Anya wasn't sure where she was going yet, not wanting to go back to the lounge in case she'd run into one of her crewmates. All she knew was that she couldn't be in the barracks anymore.

Her eyes were trained on the lounge door as she walked past it quietly, trying to make sure that she wasn't caught lurking around. Her face was surely still a wreck and she'd already talked to Daisuke about a headache. Captain knew she wasn't feeling her best. Anya didn't know if Swansea was filled in on her current status but she'd rather not have to lie to his face too. What Jimmy thought didn't really matter, because he knew the real reason she felt awful; if he tried to tell himself a single thing otherwise, then maybe he really was as villainous as Anya wanted to make him out to be.

The sound of her footsteps against the grates was a nice tactile experience as she padded down the stairs to where the doors for utility and the cockpit were. Anya wasn't actually going to either of those places, she was just taking a walk to try and shake off this uncomfortable restless feeling that had decided to nest itself right at the base of her belly.

When she had first been attacked, it had been about 2 months into the haul. Anya had been completely caught off guard by it, since she had never expected that any of the men she shared the freighter with would hurt her. Even though she and Jimmy never got along so well, she wouldn't have guessed he was a predator like that.

Her instincts weren't as good as she thought, she guessed.

After pacing the hall near the cockpit over and over for who knows how long, Anya started back upstairs. She didn't know what she was doing. She had to sleep eventually. But as long as she couldn't lock her barrack door, Anya felt like she was never going to be rested again.

As she got to the second floor, an idea struck her. Medical had a lock on the door, didn't it? It was supposed to be for privacy of 'patients' and to be compliant with some regulation that Pony Express was required to abide by, she was pretty sure. However, she could use that lock.

The idea felt like a stroke of genius, one Anya almost felt excited for. A night's rest where she could lock the door and guarantee that no one else could get in? It was literally a dream come true.

Instead of even going back to her room for a single item, Anya led herself to medical. For the first time in what felt like forever, she felt a sense of relief as she pulled the heavy metal door shut and pushed down the red release handle, locking the door in place. No one could get to her in there, especially not him. It was probably the most secure room on the whole ship minus the cockpit, which made that pit that had been digging itself deeper and deeper in Anya's gut calm down a little bit.

Anya stared at the locked door for an unnecessary amount of time before she turned to observe the room. Medical was her working quarters, so she knew this room like the back of her hand, but this was the first time she looked at it as if it was the only place on the freighter that could save her from danger.

The thought of what the rest of the crew (minus him) would think of her sleeping in Medical passed her mind briefly. Captain Curly would be concerned, without a shadow of a doubt. Swansea would probably make some off-handed comment about how the gurneys might actually be more comfortable than their cots in the barracks. Daisuke would probably just think she did it to get in more reading or working time, such an innocent kid.

How could she hide it from the others that she hadn't slept in her room?

While it really wasn't going to change much if she started sleeping in Medical regularly, she didn't want to have to come up with another lie that she would have to tell them to their faces. Not to mention fighting off that feeling of sickness as she told the lie because Jimmy's eyes would be boring into her the whole time as if to control her even without saying or doing anything.

Her dark eyes landed on the radio off in the corner of the room. She and Captain were the only two who really ever used the radio in Medical, but she'd never once stopped to look if it did anything besides play cassettes or the radio (which they couldn't use, for obvious reasons). If it had an alarm, maybe she could just get up earlier than everyone else and sneak back into her barrack before they got up. They wouldn't hear the alarm from the barracks, on the other side of the lounge - at least she hoped they couldn't.

Anya checked the radio and found a little alarm setting on the back. While the radio was nothing fancy, it had a small knob to set for when the alarm should ring out.

For some reason, this whole idea of sleeping in medical made her feel scandalous like she was doing something bad or wrong. Even though she was hiding from being further harmed, the little voice playing in the back of her head told her that maybe, just maybe, she could have prevented it some other way. Anya knew that little voice was very wrong but it didn't change it's quiet chirping in her ear as she set the alarm on the clock and started pulling sheets out of the storage cabinets.

The thought of 'what if this is my fault?' or 'I'm sure there's something I can do to make him stop besides hide.' played in her head over and over again. She hated that she even had thoughts like that. Not all thoughts are true. Not all thoughts are true. Anya forced herself to think to try and calm her pounding heart. She had tried to do everything else to get him to stop besides hide. She tried being nice. She tried being mean. She tried hitting him (that had gone so well — Anya felt sick for days after that time, the third time). She tried just letting him have it without engaging. There was no winning with Jimmy in the captain seat like that.

Anya felt that, somewhere deep down, she could have acted like she reciprocated the act and somehow Jim would have gotten violent with her then too. He didn't want the assaults to be her just taking it. It made her feel sick but she had the thought that Jimmy seemed to like the struggle of it. He liked that she panicked and tried to shove him off. He got off on the way she had pleaded with him in a rushed whisper to stop. It only pushed him to do the one thing she asked him not to — but why would he have listened when she requested he not finish inside when he hadn't listened to her pleas for him to stop before?

An audible sigh filled up the room as she finished tucking in the last of the blankets to the gurney. The window screen was right above the bed, giving an illusion of moonlight. Anya chose that spot on purpose. Moon and sunlight helped with anxiety, depression, stress, and so many other things… Human weren't meant to be cooped up in a freighter for 13 months at a time. Those window screens really were the only thing keeping her sane some days.

The Pony Express standard issue jumpsuit was not the most comfortable thing to sleep in. She had left all of her clothes in her room, and there was no way she was going back there to get anything more comfortable just for sleep. She'd be fine.

Lamenting on her thoughts of her inappropriate sleep attire, Anya crawled into the gurney. The mattresses were surprisingly comfortable considering that they were just standard ambulance gurney mattresses. She nuzzled into the pillow and before she could even think another word about it, Anya dozed off.

The alarm from the radio blared and Anya jumped awake, nearly falling straight out of the bed. She blinked a couple times, eyes feeling swollen. Her whole face felt a little swollen from how hard she'd slept through the night — her first good night's rest in a couple months. It took her a moment to orient herself, having forgotten for a second that she had slept in medical.

Before she could even fully rub the sleep out of her eyes, a wave of nausea washed over her. Despite being stiff and still not fully awake, she rushed off of the bed and threw herself over the sink to the left. She gagged and spit up water and bile, but nothing else managed to come up.

Why was she so ill?

Anya let out a cough over the sink as that initial wave of nausea passed. Once she felt it was safe, she guided herself to her chair at the desk.

Maybe she was nauseous because she neglected to eat a meal yesterday. Or maybe she really was coming down with something. Maybe she was getting 'seasick'. It could be anything, she told herself as she avoided the elephant in the room.

Another gag escaped her and Anya let out a quiet groan. There was one possibility that she had been actively trying not to think about… a cause to her sickness that she'd been possibly exposed to frequently lately. Her brown eyes trailed up to the calendar on her peg board and she frowned to herself.

Her last menstrual cycle had been at the end of the month before last, shortly before Jimmy's first time assaulting her.

Oh god.

The nausea didn't help the panic that was beginning to stir up inside of her. If… if it were that… what would she do? She couldn't keep it a secret. She couldn't… kill… it. She would have to grit and bear it, just hoping nothing goes terribly wrong.

It wasn't even the truth yet. She needed to calm down. After all, she'd been under so much stress that her period was probably late because of all of the crying and skipping meals she'd been doing lately. Right? She'd lost her period in the past before because of stress her second time in medical school, so it wasn't unheard of.

Anya got up from her desk and dragged herself to the cabinet near the radio where there were various tests for different things: blood glucose strips, influenza a/b antibody tests, blood typing tests, various drug tests, the works. Something visibly and strikingly missing from the mix was the one thing she'd been looking for. A pregnancy test.

While she was disappointed, she wasn't surprised. With the bylaws for employees stating that sexual activity was strictly prohibited, it would be counterproductive to then provide pregnancy tests — or condoms for that matter. Anya couldn't help but also suspect they didn't have any kind of hormonal testing at all simply because most of their manned freighters had been all male crews. She was an outlier for this kind of job, even as the nurse on staff.

Frustrated by the lack of access, Anya sat back down at her desk and stared at the notebook she used for 'patient notes' for a long moment. She hated this. She felt sick. She wanted to pretend this wasn't an option to consider. It shouldn't have ever been. But… it was there now so she needed to apply her knowledge and see if she could manage a differential of her own symptoms.

Anya's hand trembled as she started writing:

"- morning sickness / general nausea
- loss of appetite
- late period
- more emotional? (trauma?)
- higher resting heart rate
- brain fog (trauma?)"

She stared at the list. Even with only these few items listed, Anya had to admit it wasn't looking in her favour. She ran her free hand over her face and then leaned forward, resting her head down on the desk. She really wanted to figure out a way to confirm her suspicion but without a pregnancy test, the only real way to confirm was just time.

Pushing herself back into a sitting position, Anya let her eyes run over the list again. How could she try to confirm or disprove her theory?

After a few moments of thinking, Anya recalled a study she'd read once that discussed pregnant women's urine pH being higher than that of non-pregnant ones. While she wouldn't have a control group, Anya could infer since there was an average. Did they have alkaline test strips? She thought she saw some when she'd been shuffling through the cabinets trying to find a pregnancy test.

Rummaging through the cabinets again, Anya quickly found the container of pH test strips. She put them on the counter by the sink before pulling down a couple of her medical books so she could shuffle through the pages and find the text with the average pH for human urine.

She really hoped this theory that she only vaguely remembered from a study she read who knows when gave her answers she desired. Anya was shaking a little as she skimmed the book and found the information she had been looking for.

Anya grabbed a urine sample cup (something she wasn't sure she'd ever needed to use before on any of her previous trips with Pony Express) and tried to pull herself together enough to feel safe unlocking the door and slipping into the bathroom.

Ten minutes passed and Anya had spend most of that time pacing medical and trying not to panic. She had covered the pH strip so she couldn't see it develop, scared to see the colours on the small strip of paper.

After she finished chewing off her pinky nail in anxious anticipation, Anya went to the cabinet by the sink where she had the strip she'd dipped in the cup and slowly shifted the clipboard she'd put on top of it. Her chest felt like it was being crushed by a vice as one of the boxes was revealed. She completely uncovered it and could feel her heart drop into her stomach.

There it was.

The colours on the strip clearly showed her urine pH as somewhere between 7.25 and 7.75, when the average women's urine pH should be around 6 according to her medical books.

So… that was it then.

Anya was pregnant.

Even thinking those words made her knees give out underneath her and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. She was pregnant. What was she supposed to do? Anya couldn't help as she started gasping for air, her senses being stolen by the sudden panic that hit her.

What was she going to say to him ? What was she going to tell Captain? What about Swansea or Daisuke? How was she going to manage any of that?

Anya's mind was both going a mile a minute and also nothing but static. There was no prenatal care on the ship. She didn't even have the proper ultrasound equipment. There were no vitamins for something like that. Hell, all of their meals were either processed from the vending machine or in those Pony Express sealed packets — the same ones that had had controversy and recalls on them for various health side effects reported from different longhauler crews. She really had not even the basics to carry a pregnancy to term. She knew in theory how it worked, but as both the only even somewhat trained medical personnel on the freighter and the one who was actually pregnant, she had no idea how to tackle this.

He was going to kill her. He'd said, "Make a peep and I'll kill you." But this wasn't something she could hide. She could for a couple of months at least. However, there was… Anya let out a choked sound when she realised just how many months were left in their journey.

8 months.

Collapsing completely onto the floor felt like the only sensible reaction as she felt another wave of sorrow and fear whelm her.

She was going to have to give birth here. No access to prenatal care suddenly became the least of her concerns. Anya may not have passed medical school but even she knew that a fully unattended birth was asking for trouble. She could develop any number of complications and without someone else there to keep an eye where she couldn't, fatal errors could be completely missed. If Jimmy didn't kill her, this pregnancy very well could. And if it didn't kill her, the baby could end up injured or dead.

Medical was overwhelmingly filled with Anya's unintentionally loud crying as she panicked and shook, holding her head as she lay balled up on the floor. Her breathing was unregulated and she was sure she was pulling out strands of her hair but she didn't even feel it. Right as one thought started calming down, three more cropped up.

Anya was not a religious person, but she found herself locking her hands together and muttering a prayer to whatever higher power may possibly exist. "Please, please, let me be wrong. Let it be the anxiety or the cabin fever or whatever else. I can't have a baby like this. I can't take care of it. I can't take care of myself. I… please God, or whoever you are… I can't do this now." Anya's prayer was muttered and broken by her tears and gasps.

How long did she lie on the floor and murmur prayers to a higher power she was agnostic towards?

The tears had died down and she was finally able to breathe a bit better. The reality of the situation was sinking in slowly. She was pregnant. Not just, but because she had been raped. Her autonomy had been stolen in those four nights, and now it was forever broken. There was no way out of it. This was simply the reality she was going to have to live through no matter how horrible it felt or how heavy her feet felt to move.

Right as she peeled herself off of the floor of medical, there was a knock at the locked metal door. "You breathing, Anya?" The voice of Swansea called out.

Oh right. She was supposed to have gotten up and sneaked back to her barracks. Oh well, that was down the drain now. Anya got herself on her feet and bit the inside of her lip nervously. Her face was going to inevitably look a mess. She'd been clinging to and pulling her own hair so she was sure that she must look like she was electrocuted or something. Either way, she forced herself to the door as she attempted to pat down her hair. "Y-yes, I'm fine." Anya said as she pushed the release to the lock up.

When she slid the door open, Swansea was standing at the door with one hand on his hip, the other holding a mug. He must have either jimmied the coffee machine to somehow spit out more of that nasty cardboard water or he was finally breaking down and drinking the tea that Daisuke liked to make. "Damn, you look rough." Swansea said, no hesitation.

Leave it to the mechanic to be blunt with her. "Oh, do I? I… haven't been feeling well." Anya said quietly. Her voice really did just sound like that now, calling back to how quiet she'd sounded talking to Daisuke the day before.

Swansea took a sip out of his cup before replying. "I seen that. You figure the cause?" He asked, walking into medical despite Anya having been standing in the doorway.

Anya hesitated. The moment she paused, she realised she messed up. She welcomed assumptions by doing something like that. What didn't help is the mess in medical she'd not cleaned up. The list of symptoms written in the notebook at her desk, the urine cup on the counter, and pH strip nearby on said counter were all just left out for anyone to see. Anya planned to clean it up but found herself too devastated to move enough to clean up the trail of evidence behind her.

Swansea turned to look at her after walking in, before pointing behind him at the gurney with bedding on it. "D'ya sleep in here last night? Musta been a rough one then." He observed as he took another drink from the cup in his hand. "I decided to come check on ya when none of us saw you in the lounge for breakfast."

Anya nodded a little before looking away for a moment, purposefully turning her head the opposite direction of the counter with the mess on it. "It's probably nothing. I've just been under the weather." That lie felt even more like a knife twisting in her gut now that she knew why she'd been feeling so bad.

"Hm." Swansea replied before he polished off his cup. "I'm pretty sure I heard cryin' in here earlier." As he said that, he looked up at her with all knowing eyes. She couldn't help but feel slightly unsettled like Swansea was somehow reading her like a book.

Cursing to herself in her thoughts, Anya nodded slowly. "I-I was crying, but it was unrelated. Just… homesick. You know how it is." She knew she couldn't have lied herself out of that one. After all, she probably looked like she'd been sobbing on top of Swansea hearing her. "Did, uh, did anyone else hear me?" She needed to know if she should prepare to talk to the others.

Swansea raised an eyebrow before shaking his head. "Not that I know of. Don't mean they didn't though." He said as he crossed his arms. "When yer feelin' homesick, locking yourself in this room prolly isn't the best way to go about that, ya know."

Anya was sure she blushed a little and she nodded, looking down at the floor for a second before bringing her eyes back up to look at Swansea. "I know…" If she'd actually been feeling homesick, locking herself in medical was probably not how she'd handle it. No, she'd make an effort to go to the lounge and mingle, maybe play a board game and let herself get a bit too out of hand while competing with Daisuke. But this wasn't that.

"Anyway, I'm glad to see you ain't dead in here or nothing. Not that I thought you were; you know how that kid can get. He panicked the second he realised you didn't come to breakfast." Swansea said as he tapped the side of his cup.

"I didn't mean to worry anyone." Anya replied, self-consciously patting down her hair again. "I told Daisuke about how I was feeling under the weather yesterday." Her words came out as a mutter, eyes trailed on the floor as she spoke.

"Yesterday's yesterday. Today's today." Swansea said as he moved towards the door. "I'm gonna get goin', I got work to do. You should prolly get at least something small to eat. Looks like yer having some trouble in here; havin' a good warm meal might help." As Swansea said that, he pointed at the counter.

Anya bit her lip as she glanced over at the counter. One small grace of there being no pregnancy tests was that she hadn't accidentally left something like that out on the counter for just anyone to see. She could claim whatever when it came to checking the pH of her urine, especially with not feeling well. She could just claim it was some new age diagnostic tool for the stomach bug or some other malarkey. "I'll go get something to eat soon, I promise." She decided on saying, not addressing the mess on the counter by the sink.

"Good." Swansea said with a definitive nod as he started out of the door. After stepping into the hall, he paused and turned around. "By the way, if you got a reason you slept in here last night that ain't feelin' sick, I'd lend an ear."

Intertwining her fingers together and starting back to her desk, Anya froze at Swansea's parting words. "N-no, no other reason. Thank you, though, Swansea. That means a lot."

Swansea didn't look too terribly convinced but he nodded nonetheless and started down the hall, presumably to utility.

Now the only person who hadn't approached her about her off behaviour was Jimmy — not that Anya wanted nor thought he would. Out of everyone on Tulpar, he had to have known exactly why she was acting differently. He may not have known of her current condition but he did know what he'd done to her and that's all that was needed.

Anya let out a sigh as she moved to clean up the mess on the counter. Her stomach did flips as she saw the now discoloured pH strip. She was terrified for the future. These next few months were going to be so volatile. Between the lack of access to healthcare and having to be cooped up in the same ship as him, Anya was sure she was going to get hurt. It was just a matter of when.

Once the counter was cleaned, Anya gathered a few books from one of the cabinets and started out into the lounge. If she kept herself locked in medical all the time, she'd be welcoming all sorts of questions from the crew which she'd rather not deal with. So she decided to go out into the lounge and read, an activity she did frequently. It was soothing and routine, something she could use some of.

Anya didn't know when, but at some point during the evening she'd gotten distracted from the psychology textbook she was reading and ended up staring up at the night sky on the window screen. Those screens really had a way of drawing her in when her mind started wandering.

Thoughts of her current situation and the conversations she was inevitably going to have to have with everyone played in her mind as she picked at the sleeve of her jumpsuit, dark eyes following the different stars on the screen.

"You doing okay?" The voice of their captain caught her attention, guiding her gaze from the clouds on the large monitor.

Anya looked at Curly and let out a soft sigh before replying, "Yeah. Can't sleep." She didn't know exactly what time it was anymore but it had to be late, based on how long she'd been surrounded by the night sky.

Curly nodded, "I know how that is. I just toss and turn." He paused for a moment before adding, "Or stare at the ceiling all night."

Did he really? Anya couldn't begin to actually express her feelings to him. Instead she replied to his sentiment, "I actually kinda like the nighttime window screen, if you can believe it. So I just come look at it sometimes." Her tone was a bit heavier than she anticipated. "If you look really, really close, you can see there's a dead pixel in the upper right corner."

Curly raised an eyebrow as his blue eyes followed her gaze to the monitor. "That so?" He let out a sound of thought as he studied the screen for a long moment before letting out a small breath. "Nope. Don't see it."

"In the back of my mind it's always there." Anya said, looking at the spot in question. That dead pixel felt like some kind of metaphor she wasn't connecting. It was bigger than her, bigger than any of them, despite only being a single pixel amongst the big picture.

Curly continued to try and trace to where she was looking but still couldn't see it. "Now I'll go bonkers looking for it — cheers." He said before his gaze fell back onto Anya's face. "…I don't think it ruins the illusion though. It's peaceful. But maybe I'm just used to looking at the bigger picture."

It was like they were on a similar wavelength. That feeling carried Anya's next thought, as much as she didn't want to think about it. "How many days of transport do we have left?" As if she didn't know.

"Ah, let's see… Off the top of my head… Around 237 days." Captain replied, looking back up at the screen. "Just under-"

"Eight months." Anya replied, fully aware of the time before she'd even asked him about it.

Curly was quiet, the air feeling somewhat heavy.

Anya took in a small breath, the weight of the world on her next sentence. "Hey." She said, making sure she had Captain's gaze before she continued her thought. "Why do you think Pony Express put a lock on the medical room door but not in the sleeping quarters?"

What a question. Curly had to think about it for a moment, not sure where she was getting at. "Hmm, I suppose for the same reason they put a lock on the cockpit."

Safety.

Safety. He said. Anya knew she couldn't blame Curly for not knowing what had happened, what was happening. After all, she was staying mum for the time being. "I am thinking about sleeping in medical from now on."

Curly cocked his head to the side and studied her face for a moment. "Why's that?"

"Safety." Anya replied, not intentionally making it seem like she was throwing his words back in his face.

The captain hesitated for a moment, letting his gaze wander back to the windows screen. "Safety from what?" He decided to ask, though there was a suddenly slightly hollow look on his face.

Anya didn't reply to that question, instead directing her gaze to the Psychology 101 book she'd been reading earlier in the day. She stared at it intensely, as if trying to tell Captain Curly something with that look. She wanted more than anything for Curly to understand what she was trying to say without her having to actually come out and say it. Anya couldn't say it.

Hopefully he understood what she meant.